


From the Ashes

by Fyre



Series: Burning [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-31
Updated: 2012-03-31
Packaged: 2017-11-02 19:26:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/372538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fyre/pseuds/Fyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the Ogre Wars threaten to sweep all kingdoms away, Rumpelstiltskin feels the pull of blood on the Dark One's dagger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From the Ashes

**Author's Note:**

> This is entirely Cyprith's fault. It was decreed that "if you were to write a fantastic new Rumbelle AU with lots of fireworks and goldfish and fast cars and dragons and pony rides, I would be all over that shit". And ten minutes later, I had the bunny for this story.
> 
> Well, there are no ponies, fast cars or fireworks, but it's the most AU thing I've done in OUaT fandom. And it really did _not_ go in the direction I expected.

The blood on the blade filled his mouth with the taste of metal.

Even across the Kingdoms, the pull was irresistible, but it was wrong. Something was wrong. The blood, the flavour, the very feel of the magic dragging his bones from where they rested. It was all wrong.

The threads of his essence were torn and dragged into ribbons across the spaces between the world and magic, carrying him like dust motes in a beam of light. It was the pain of fire and ice and burning. It was the pain of summoning.

His fury was beyond measure as he emerged into the world of mortals once more, his claws ripping at the air, his teeth bared. Scarlet eyes searched out the one who dared to speak his name, who dared to wield the dagger.

The room was dark, the walls of stone, and only a single oil lamp, smoky and dull, hung from the ceiling.

“Who summons me?” Rumpelstiltskin growled. “Who dares to claim the blade?”

A shadow by the wall broke away, stepping forward, the puttering light revealing little of the cloaked, hooded figure. What he could see was the blade, gripped in a pale hand, the blade glistening and red. 

“I do.” A woman? 

He was on her in a heartbeat, his hands at her throat. “Release it,” he snarled.

From the cowl, there was hoarse laughter. “Release _me_.”

His hands fell away against his will. He stepped back, his body taut with rage. The blade was not hers to hold. When Bae left, it was the only object he agreed to take. His father’s life in his hands. Should he ever need him, ever, all he needed to do was call on him. Bae would never have given it up, not willingly.

“So it does work.” She reached up and pushed back her hood, gazing at him. Blue eyes glittered in the candlelight. “I did wonder. The books rarely give any details about what happens next.”

He fixed his eyes on her, memorising her face to better peel the skin from her bones when she dropped her guard. She was thin, with a sharp, pointed face. Her lips were as red and bloody as the blade. Dark hair was pulled back in a tight knot. She was smiling, cold and unpleasant.

“Rumplestiltskin,” she whispered. Her teeth glittered red. “Bow.”

It felt like a thousand threads sewn into his skin pulled in a thousand directions at once and he hissed, his body twitching.

She turned the blade over in her hand and bared her other palm. There was a bloody gash there, dripping still, and she laid the blade against it. To summon with blade alone was power enough, but with blood was torture.

“Bow,” she repeated, her voice barely a whisper.

To resist would have forced the bones through his flesh and the blood from his veins. Better to live and wreak vengeance than to die in defiance of a foolish little harlot with no idea what she was doing. 

He spread his arms and bowed mockingly, smiling at the thought of ripping her heart from her chest and devouring it whole. “My lady.”

“Again.” Her voice was cool and even. “Without the sarcasm.”

His lips peeled back from his teeth in a snarl, but he complied.

“Better.” 

She approached him. He could hear the tap of bootheels beneath her cloak, and he could see the way it rippled. She was armed, a short sword at her left side, which was rare for a noblewoman. She was certainly one of those, though he could taste the desperation driving her like acrid smoke in the air.

“What can I do for you, dear?” he breathed, craning his head towards her, rolling it on his neck. His very joints were screaming from the power pulsing through the blade, the power of his name over him. 

“I charge you to speak the truth,” she whispered, her eyes fixed on his. “Directly and without pause.”

He sneered, lips curling. “As you wish.”

“How powerful are you?” 

He laughed, the sound a savage explosion in the stillness of the room. “Do you ask the sea how wet it is? Or the sky how high?”

She laid the blade against her bloody palm and fire seared through his bones. “You did not answer the question. How. Powerful. Are. You.”

“I’m very powerful,” he snarled. “I have yet to be truly challenged.”

“Hmm.” The blade and wound parted and she walked around him. He fought the impulse to follow her movements. Better to focus on where he might be, what he might do to liberate himself. “What do you know of ogres?”

A thousand thoughts lined up one after the other: bloody corpses, limbs torn and scattered, stepping through the entrails of his best friend, the screaming that still woke him in the night, the terror of Bae being dragged away to die.

“I know they are considered undefeatable.”

She stopped in front of him, looking him full in the face. “Truly a challenge?” she murmured, her eyes glittering. 

His breath caught. “Ogres, dearie?”

“Mm. Many of them.” She smiled in a way that sent ice through his veins. “They destroyed my land. They killed many of my people. They can’t be stopped. Unless…” His blade pointed at his chest, and she nodded at him. “Rumpelstiltskin, the powerful Dark One, provides his most gracious assistance.”

“Gracious,” he sneered, his hands clenching by his sides.

Ogres. To face them again, even with such power, made something inside him curl in terror. He was no longer Rumpelstiltskin the coward, but some of the coward remained in Rumpelstiltskin the Dark One.

She bit her lower lip, and tilted one finger to bring the tip of the blade up, until it grazed his chin. “Do you need to be ordered, Rumpelstiltskin?” she whispered. “Because if you do, I will make you writhe and scream and beg for kindness.”

He narrowed his eyes. There was something in her, something twisted and broken and dark, and he had no doubts she would do exactly as she threatened. “What would you have me do, dear?”

She stepped closer, until he could feel the fevered beat of her heart close to his own. She wasn’t afraid, that much he could tell. The madness in her eyes was so far beyond fear, he couldn’t imagine her fearing anything, even death. 

“Kill them all,” she whispered. “Every ogre in the Kingdom and those that border these lands, destroy their nests, spread the dust of their remains to the four winds. Leave no trace that they ever lived.”

“All?” he echoed. It shocked him to the core. Ogres were terrible, but they were living creatures nonetheless. To wipe out all of a race, even the nests and the aged ones to old to do battle? 

Her face was so close to his that he could feel the warmth of her breath on his lips, her eyes holding his. “I have no qualms about killing monsters,” she murmured. She tilted the blade up and pressed her lips to the tip, then said quietly, “Do it and return to me in this place as soon as it is finished.”

Rumpelstiltskin’s mouth was dry as bone. “My lady,” he said hoarsely.

 

_________________________________________________

 

The oil lamp had burned out long before he returned.

Rumpelstiltskin sat on the floor of the cell, leaning against the wall, his hands resting on his upraised knees. His claws were sunk through clothing and flesh, almost to the bone, sticky with blood. 

The mercy of it all was that ogres did not scream, not as humans did.

He had sought the battlefields first. The violence there made his blood run hot, and that made it easier, drawing on the darkest of magics to rend the creatures apart. He remembered his own mortal battles, the terror, and he struck without mercy, tearing apart their very essence and returning to the dust they came from. 

Each battlefield, each ambush, his power surged like a river bursting the banks, washing the creatures from the face of the earth. His heart pounded and his skim thrummed with the power, and for a moment, it was bearable.

Until he sought the nests.

There were blessedly few, many of the breeding ogres too bent on destruction to consider mating, but that did not make it any easier. The infants looked unlike their sires and dames, small and harmless, tumbling in growling litters in their rocky beds. Some slept, piled one atop the other. Some chewed on well-gnawed sticks.

Rumpelstiltskin recoiled. Even if they were the enemy, they were infants. Only the most merciless could ever accept the murder of the young. One day, they might be grown, but now, they were harmless.

The command of his Mistress twisted about him, curling his blood in his veins, driving him to his knees. His bones felt like they were writhing beneath his flesh, and he knew that it would only worsen until his flesh was torn away unless he obeyed.

He closed his eyes and extended his hands, and the power leapt.

All the mercy he could grant, he did. It was immediate, painless, and they were naught but dust.

In the room, the cell, he sat silently in the dark.

Hours passed. Perhaps days. Maybe she expected little of him.

He remained there, as commanded. It was done, and he returned.

The door finally opened, light slicing in. It was daylight, bright and blinding, and she was framed by it. No cloak this time, but breeches, tunic, boots, and his dagger hanging casually from her hand at her side.

"You have returned?" For a moment, she sounded surprised. He could not yet make out her expression, when he raised his face. He felt hollow, dried-out. 

"It is done." His voice sounded like a stranger's, rasping and hoarse.

She was silent for a long while. "Done?" she finally asked.

"As commanded, my lady," he replied, struggling to his feet and bowing stiffly. "The warriors, the old, the young, the newborns. All massacred."

She stepped into the room, approaching him, and her face was pale, her expression set. "A massacre refers to people," she said, tapping the blade of the knife against her hand. "The word you are looking for is slaughter." Her lips were a thin, white line. "You slaughter animals."

He looked at her with contempt. "Semantics, dear," he said.

"Fact," she replied, closing her hand around the blade. "Will my lands be safe now?"

He tilted his head to one side. "From ogres, yes." A muscle in his cheek twitched. "Though I imagine you will have other enemies. If you didn't before, you will now. A land free from ogres? People will want to claim it all. You have just made your little land prime bounty."

Her blue eyes flashed. "They can try," she snarled. She brought the dagger up between them and laid it against his heart. “I bind you, Rumpelstiltskin, in name and blood and deed. If my lands are threatened, you will be our guardian. You will not speak treachery to our enemies. You will not cause harm to me or mine either in action or through inaction. You will answer to me alone, and accept the command of no other.”

His lips drew back from his teeth and he leaned closer, the blade pricking through his shirt. “I have heard such words before, dear,” he hissed. “Those who spoke them were named tyrant.”

She lifted the blade to press it against his throat. “You will be silent,” she said, low and dangerous, “unless I give you leave to speak.”

His lips curled in contempt which needed no words to be conveyed.

“Come with me,” she said abruptly, turning on her heel and stalking out into the daylight. 

He expected a castle, a splendid building with towers and great walls which would be perfectly defensible against ogres. The stonework of the cell suggested it would be so, somewhere ancient and well-defended. 

Instead, he emerged into a courtyard of rubble. 

Once, it must have been magnificent, a structure of white stone, but now, all was dust and ruin. The walls were blackened by fire and towers had crumbled in upon themselves. Thick rivulets of blood wove between the symmetrical patterns in the flagstones, darkening them grimly.

The woman, his Mistress, climbed over the rubble as if she was born doing so. The stench of death was thick in the air, and he caught glimpses of bodies, decayed to little more than bone, jutting from beneath shattered walls. 

Rumpelstiltskin followed, frowning deeply.

He paid little attention to the affairs of men, and had not done so for decades. If he was called, he approached and offered what they wanted for a price they couldn’t afford but would pay regardless. He cared nothing for their politics or war.

The ogres were always notorious, and had been since the days he walked as a man, but they had rarely ventured on such large structures. If they were growing bolder and attacking more than simple villages, the world must have turned considerably.

The woman ducked through an archway shielded by a drape of something that may once have been a tapestry. It was bloodied and burnt beyond recognition.

The room beyond was the remain of a great hall. One wall had completely collapsed under the weight of a tower, daylight visible through the cracks, but otherwise, it was dim and silent. The windows were covered, and by the few lanterns that were lit, he could see bodies, some still breathing, some on the verge of failing.

The woman strode past the mats that the wounded lay on, stepping over mangled limbs and pausing only once or twice to look on the patients. Her expression when she did so was unreadable.

It was meant to be a room of healing, Rumpelstiltskin realised, gazing around, but it was a room of death. 

The woman was at the far end of the hall, on one knee beside a tall man. He was sitting upright and was conscious, which was more than could be said for the others that lay between him and Rumpelstiltskin. His face was covered in thick scars, and his left sleeve was empty, rolled and stitched to his shoulder.

Rumpelstiltskin approached. The tapping of his shoes echoed back eerily over the faint groans and whimpers of the dying. The woman straightened up, her expression still blank and smooth as ice. 

“This is the Dark One,” she murmured. “He has vanquished the ogres for us.” 

The man struggled to his feet, despite the woman’s hand on his shoulder. He swayed where he stood, towering over both the woman and Rumpelstiltskin himself, and bowed slightly from the waist. “We thank you, Dark One,” he said hoarsely. “We had lost all hope.”

Rumpelstiltskin stared blankly back at him.

The man staggered, and the woman helped him to sit again. “Rest, Gaston,” she said, touching his shoulder. “We will be able to seek better shelter soon.” She looked at Rumpelstiltskin. “He was wounded. As were all those who rest here.” Her blue eyes bored into his. “Can you heal them?”

Rumpelstiltskin shook his head. The woman’s expression tightened.

“Explain,” she said.

“Simple, dear,” he said. “Magic is volatile. Unpredictable. The human body is a fragile thing. One flicker of power the wrong way, and the bleeding will kill quicker than the original injury.”

For a moment, her mask of icy composure slipped and she swore, running a hand over her face. 

“We couldn’t ask for more,” Gaston said, lifting his hand to touch her arm. “The ogres are truly vanquished?”

The woman nodded. “The borders are safe again.”

The man smiled as much as he could, his face so torn it was impossible to be sure. “I think the Dark One has done enough,” he said.

“For now,” the woman agreed, looking steadily at Rumpelstiltskin.

He wondered inwardly how long it would take him to find a way to break free from her, before she found some other murderous task for him. It would happen. A taste of power always corrupted.

He simply needed to find someway to have someone kill her, and be done with it.

If only he could speak.

 

__________________________________________

 

For three days and three nights, Rumpelstiltskin shadowed the woman who was now his mistress.

He knew nothing of her, save that as ruthless as she was to her enemies, she was merciful to those under her aegis. Her name was not spoken, under her orders he supposed. If he knew her name, he would be able to resist her thrall to a degree. It would not be much, but it would mean that her control would not be so absolute.

She gave him few orders, save shoring up the walls of the castle to prevent further injuries, which was a minor task. She disregarded him entirely for the most part, as she spoke to the wounded and the soldiers returning from the battlefields.

So he haunted her, a silent shadow, listening to all he could, and watching fixedly for the moment she forgot to keep the dagger at hand.

She was not unwise, he had to admit. When matters that might have been useful to him where being discussed, he was dismissed to guard the crumbling entrance to the castle. When she slept - which was rarely - he was ordered to slumber. Resting under orders was a painful matter, and he knew that she knew it.

The woman was a witch, though not in the usual fashion.

They both knew this was a game, a dance, of who held the power. At present, all the cards were in her hand, but the game was not about who held the cards, but who won in the end, and that was the challenge.

She roused him on the fourth day with a prod of her boot. “Breakfast,” she said.

It was barely dawn, the chill still bitter in the air, and she led him down to a lower courtyard in the castle. A fire was still burning there, as it had been for days. It was the remains of a pyre, and did not have time to sink low before more flesh was added to it. Half of the people in the healing rooms were gone.

She paused by it, extending her hand over the flame. It was something she did each morning, gathering a coil of smoke in her palm, then releasing it to the air.

It barely took two heartbeats, then she was walking again. She led him into a room that had once been a pantry but now lay open to the elements and pulled down some of the supplies.

“Will you eat with me?” she asked. “You may speak.”

“Do I have a choice?” he asked dryly.

She gave him an even look. “I asked if you will. You don’t need to.”

He gazed at her, then nodded. All the better to draw information from her. “If I am able to speak,” he agreed.

She didn’t wait for him to follow her as she ran up a flight of broken steps to a balcony overlooking the valley below the castle. Like the building itself, the land was ravaged and devastated.

Fearless, she sat on the very edge of the cracked balcony, and tore into the food as if she hadn’t eaten in days. It was close to accurate. The woman seemed to live on air and the occasional glass of some unnamed spirit.

“Do you have a new task to appoint me?” he asked, folding down some way behind her. “Something that can’t be said around prying ears?”

She leaned against the balustrade, one leg dangling over the abyss, and gazed at him. “Gaston finds your servitude displeasing.”

“He’s not the only one,” Rumpelstiltskin said darkly.

The woman’s lips twitched. “I imagine not,” she agreed, “but here you are.” She touched the handle of his dagger, which was resting in a sheath against her right hip. “I intend to keep you close. You’re too useful to release.”

He bowed mockingly. “Your humble servant.”

“Doubtful,” she countered. She tossed him a hunk of bread. It was stale, verging on mouldy, but it was better than nothing. “We will be leaving this place soon. Those who are wounded too badly…” She paused, and he knew what was going unsaid. The wounded who lingered were dying. There were but a handful left. “Those who are recovering will soon be strong enough to move on.”

“And no doubt, I am to be your courier,” he snorted, tearing the bread into strips.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she snapped. “I know the dangers of magic, and using it for menial tasks. It comes with a price. We have nothing left to pay with, so we will do things the way nature intended. We have legs. We are able. Those who can walk will walk, those who cannot will be carried.”

He looked at her doubtfully. “You know the dangers of magic,” he said. “And yet, you summoned me.”

She gazed at him. “You know why I did.”

He bared his teeth at her. “You were rank with desperation, dear,” he said. 

“I was,” she agreed. “As Gaston said, we had lost all hope.”

“And that is what I live for,” he sneered. “To bring hope to damsels and their armless lovers.”

There was a soft whisper of metal as she drew his blade from the sheath. She held it between forefinger and thumb, the morning light glinting on the metal, and propped the tip on the stone of the balcony. 

“You have seen this city,” she said, tilting the blade and watching the light dance on the stone. “You’ve seen the survivors walking around blankly as though their souls have gone. You’ve seen the corpses resting beside the living. You’ve helped stack the funeral pyres.” Her eyes rose to his face. “This is one of the places that survived.”

He snorted. “Were you truly so weak?”

“No.”

He expected much more. From the woman who bloodied herself, kissed his blade and ordered the massacre of hundreds, he expected fury and rage at such an obvious insult to her and her people. Her reply was as sharp as a well-placed cut of a knife, and brought him up short. 

“No?”

She looked at him coolly. “We were never weak. Our armies were strong. Our tactics were good.” She turned the blade in her hands again. “But ogres are not men. Ogres do not fight for the right to land or food. They kill. That was all they did. They came across our Kingdoms like a tide. The old, the infirm, the women and children, they were the first to fall. They taste better, you know. Children are sweeter, so the stories say. Old people are more filling, though tougher to devour.” She smiled mildly at him. “I’ve been fighting this war for nearly five years, and it has been raging for many years before it reached my father’s lands. We were outnumbered and starving, but never, ever weak.”

He raised his eyebrows. Such pride from a woman wearing some peasant’s clothing, while eating mouldering bread in a ruin.

She leaned back against the balustrade again. The leg that hung over the edge of the balcony swung back and forth, like a cat’s tail. Her eyes never left his face. “You would kill me,” she said. “If I lost this blade of yours, you would kill me.”

He smiled slightly. “Not at once,” he said. 

She inclined her head. “I’m flattered,” she said. “What terrible fate do you have in mind for me?”

“Now, dear, I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise,” he murmured, imagining her pale skin unfolding like the petals of a flower, red within, and her heart the beating core. He knew he could keep her alive for days, weeks if he wished. 

She laughed quietly, closing her eyes. He wondered briefly at her age, tiny webbed lines creasing the corner of her eyes. She was not past thirty, but he could not tell how young she might have been. “I will look forward to it,” she replied. “I’m sure it will be… memorable.” 

He put his head to one side. She kept being unexpected. It was disconcerting. “No doubt,” he said dryly, “it will be freedom from your madness.”

Blue eyes opened slightly and gazed at him through dark lashes. “If that is the best insult you can produce, I find myself very disappointed,” she said. “You wish to make me angry, to give you some weapon to use against me. You’re going about it the wrong way. My lands are safe. My friends who live will continue to do so. Very little would make me angry today.”

He glared at her. “If you are feeling so… magnanimous, dear, then perhaps you would answer some questions.”

“Perhaps,” she agreed, her eyes closing again. “Ask. I may answer. If it’s a question I disapprove of, there will be consequences.”

His lips twitched back from his teeth. “The blade,” he said. “How did it come into your hands?”

He expected that question would be too far, too invasive, and even braced himself for the pain of her disapproval.

“We caught a thief with it among his possessions,” she replied with a yawn. “He only said he had taken it from a cart some time earlier. He thought it might be something valuable he could trade or sell. You were lucky he had no idea what he was holding.”

The directness of her response, her tone, told him it was the truth and for a moment, the relief was as heady as the strongest of summer wine. Bae was still alive. Stolen from, but still alive. His breath caught rebelliously, and he forced himself to calm.

It was too late, though. The blue eyes were open a crack, and she had seen. Her lashes lowered again and she laid her head back against the stone.

He wanted to curse her, thrust her off the balcony and let her shatter on the rocks below. Instead of finding out some damning new and useful knowledge about the little witch, she had found that he may have another weakness.

“Another question?” she suggested.

He ground his teeth together and threw caution to the wind. “What’s your name?”

She laughed. “No, Dark One,” she said, and caressed the blade, sending a sharp shock through him. “That is one question I will not answer. Anything else?”

He growled. “Do you fear me?”

She opened her eyes and looked at him. “What do you think?”

He scowled, rising, and strode back towards the stairs. 

“Talk to no one, Rumpelstiltskin,” she called after him. 

He whirled around and bowed to her, twisting his face, then stormed away.

 

______________________________________

 

The evacuation from the castle happened less than two weeks after the ogres fell.

Three days of rain made the paths treacherous, but the same rains were putting the residents in the castle in danger. Loose rubble was collapsing in daily, and one of the cliff walls overhanging the castle broke away, shearing off the westmost wing. Three died, smashed on the rocks below.

The woman was calm in the face of the chaos. She summoned the leaders of the survivors, and when her orders were given, they were obeyed. Rumpelstiltskin watched from the sidelines, wondering if she was truly such a great leader, or if the fear of what she had done, the dread of his presence, cowed them.

He was called on as they moved out. The magic was basic: stabilising the cliffs above them, shoring up the road below, ensuring that they reached the lower ground with no further casualties. There were a dozen makeshift litters bearing those too weak to walk, but the rest were on foot. 

Rumpelstiltskin walked cloaked among them, one in several hundred. He listened as they spoke to one another, urging each other on. Most of them were bone-thin and exhausted. Many were scarred and moved slowly. Their accents were as varied as their appearances. There were not just soldiers here, but all ages and genders. Each of them bore arms, from swords and spears to the slingshots slung over young shoulders. Not a child among the dozens smiled. 

He remembered a time before he was himself.

He remembered children pulled from their parents, screaming, forced to the front, to fight for men who would sit in tents and tut over the fallen. He knew that then, at least, the very youngest were safe for a while. Not now. Not anymore. 

His Mistress walked at the head of the convoy, but sometimes, she would slow her pace and retreat to the body of it. He often saw her walking beside her one-armed soldier. The man was grey-faced with pain, clearly still suffering from his injuries, but refused to be carried on a litter. His coat was buttoned high and tight, as if to hold him together.

When she was by his side, the woman would lift his unresisting arm and place it around her shoulders, offering him support. He never resisted, and she never quailed under the weight of him leaning on her shoulder. 

Sometimes, Rumpelstiltskin walked near them, close enough to hear her speaking quietly. It was seldom anything useful, but she spoke of times gone by. He knew she was noble based on bearing alone, but her rank was higher than he anticipated. She spoke of the palace that was her home, and of the rose garden she tended. Gaston sometimes added comments, but rarely. 

One thing that caught Rumpelstiltskin's attention was when names were mentioned.

Gaston spoke briefly, once, of Cecile and Eveline. For a split-second, the woman looked as if she had aged a thousand years. It was only a moment and it was gone as quick as lightning, but it was the first time she looked so fragile. Rumpelstiltskin made a note of both names. Names were always a useful device, and if they could be used to break her, all the better.

The convoy stopped frequently out of necessity. Some would hunt, bringing back sparse pickings to feed as many as they could. The injured needed to rest, and wounds often needed redressing. 

Rumpelstiltskin's mistress summoned him away from the encampment as they settled for the evening. A few tents were pitched, but most were so exhausted, they lay on ground, under the shelter of broad-branched trees.

Rumpelstiltskin gazed at her in expectation.

She motioned for him to sit beside her on the hoary root of an ancient oak. "Do you know these lands?" she asked.

"Not well," he admitted. 

She nodded slowly, rubbing her face with one hand. "There's life here," she said. "But we don't have time enough to hunt. People are starving. We need food. We need meat." She looked at him. "Can you find some?"

He rolled his eyes. "I thought you had a challenge for me, dear."

"Don't," she said tiredly. "Just tell me. Can you find something? I don't want to see more of the children die."

He looked at her. "Ironic, dear, given the infants you ordered slain."

She was looking up at the tree above them. "Answer me," she said quietly.

His lips twitched in irritation. "Yes. I can find food. There are deer deeper in the forest."

"Many?"

He shook his head. "A small herd. Maybe a dozen head."

She was silent for a moment. "Bring back two," she said. "The oldest. The meat will be tough, but they need to be able to repopulate. Leave the young and the females."

He snorted derisively.

She gave him a cold look. "Ogres are nothing like deer," she said. "You act as if they're creatures with thoughts and worth. They are nothing but killers. Not even out of necessity but out of pleasure."

He rose from the root, drawing back the hood of his cloak. "Who are you to say whether they are worth more or less than any other living creature?"

She remained where she sat. "Because I have seen what they can do," she said quietly. "And I don't believe for a moment that you are unaware of that. Yes, they are living creatures, but they are also monsters who kill for no reason but to kill. They have decimated these lands. They have killed thousands more of us than you killed of them." She rose slowly, stiffly. "I will never regret my order. I will not see more of my people die."

He curled his lip contemptuously. "What makes you less of a killer than them?"

She folded her arms and met his eyes calmly. "Necessity."

He narrowed his eyes. "And if they return?"

"We will still be alive to face them," she replied quietly. "If I hadn't called on you, if I hadn't given that order, every person who travels with us would be dead within three months. That is the simple truth of it."

Rumpelstiltskin gazed at her. That, he knew, was true desperation.

"The deer?" she said. 

He nodded, and drew magic about him to hunt, vanishing from her sight.

An hour later, he returned, bearing the deer she ordered. One was hardly worth the meat on the bones, but the other was younger, a fat buck. He approached her by the fire, where she sat beside her soldier, and cast the carcasses down by the flames.

She rose, calling out to several of the men. The carcasses vanished into the throng, borne by butchers and farriers to be skinned and cooked. Somewhere, there was a shout of relief, joy at the sight of fresh meat.

She approached him, and reached out to touch his arm. "Thank you," she said quietly. 

Rumpelstiltskin wiped the blood from his hands, and bowed. "My lady," he said.

Her face creased briefly, in something that was almost a smile. "Without sarcasm?" she observed.

"Just once," he said.

 

______________________________________

 

The one-armed soldier was weakening.

Rumpelstiltskin made his living from observing those who were at the very end of their endurance, and Sir Gaston was that. He had walked until his legs gave out beneath him, and only then did he agree to be carried on one of the litters, which had recently been vacated.

The woman seldom left his side anymore, walking by the litter, talking to him when they travelled. She was trying to distract him from every jolt that made him blanch, her voice low and calm, comforting.

Rumpelstiltskin couldn't make head nor tail of their relationship. There was affection, which was obvious, but it was more the affection of comrades than of lovers. Yet, there were dozens of wounded soldiers, and none were accompanied by the leader of their little band, even though they all looked to her the same way Gaston did.

It was she who loosened Gaston's coat when they stopped by the river, opening the blood-stiffened fabric and baring his wounded torso to daylight. An ogre's claws had clearly caught him, baring ribs and muscle. His flesh had been stitched, crudely, and was swollen and puckered.

Her face contorted, as if the pain was her own, when she dragged a dampened cloth across the burning skin. It burst open, thick, stinking pus oozing out, and Gaston groaned, his eyes rolling in his head. She looked at him urgently, pinched his ear, then taking him to be unconscious, set to work cleaning the wound.

Rumpelstiltskin crouched down opposite her, staring at the wound. The man should have been dead weeks before, not walking as if he were intact.

"He believed there were people in a worse position," the woman said, her voice steady and calm. She rinsed the cloth then squeezed more of the poison from the wound. 

"He's an idiot," Rumpelstiltskin said bluntly. "He shouldn't have been moved."

Blue eyes looked across the man's bloody torso. "Gaston is about as stubborn as a boulder," she said. There were ripples of that desperation that tainted their first encounter sharp in the air around them. "If I ordered it..."

"I would obey," he said, watching her. Her fingers were sunk in the wound, as if she could pull the infection from him. "But I couldn't promise it wouldn't kill him."

She ground her teeth together, and he was surprised to see something that might have been tears shining in her eyes. "We need to bathe him," she said abruptly. "You can help me. If we let the water flow around him, it may draw the poison better."

In silence, he helped her divest the man of his blood- and dirt-stained clothing. Once, Gaston must have been an imposing figure, but now, he was emaciated, his flesh shrunk over his bones, and scars knotted thickly about his body. It took barely any effort at all to drag him from the litter into the shallow water of the stream.

The woman knelt at his head, his shoulders resting in her lap. She smoothed his hair, gazing down at him, as the water flowed around them. 

Rumpelstiltskin crouched on the bank, watching them. "Who is he?" he asked.

The woman looked at him, and he wondered if he should expect the blade to be drawn. She was paler than before, gaunt. "He's my husband."

Rumpelstiltskin's mouth dropped open. 

She smiled briefly, sadly. "That's the usual response," she observed. "Most believed I was his commander, but it wasn't so. It was to unify our lands. Seven years ago. We married. Then war came. He was the soldier, I was the strategist." Her fingers smooth through his hair, the water slicking it down. "We've been fighting side-by-side since."

Rumpelstiltskin looked at the man. They both knew he was dying by degrees. She didn't want to face it, and though he couldn't say why, he felt no inclination to pour salt in a wound that was already gaping and putrefying.

She looked at him. "He was the reason I called on you," she said. "He was the best of us. When he fell, our strongest soldier, when others were falling like leaves in autumn..." She shook her head. "You were our last resort, Rumpelstiltskin."

"Desperation," he murmured. "Rank with it."

She nodded. "Your dagger has been with us for weeks. Months. No one dared use it. Magic has a price after all, and you are the Dark One."

"And yet, here we are," he observed.

She looked at him gravely. "That was why I was the only one to summon you," she said. "Any price is on my head." Something resembling a smile crossed her lips. "I know the minute I release you, I'm as good as dead at your hands. Given the lives I've saved, I think it's a fair price."

Her dignity was astounding, but he still narrowed his eyes. "Who's to say I wouldn't turn on those you gave so much to save, once you're gone?"

"I would trust you not to," she said simply. "You're not a monster."

Rumpelstiltskin stared at her.

She looked down at Gaston, who was stirring in her arms. "There you are."

Gaston looked up at her. "I feel light," he murmured, his eyes unfocussed. 

"We got you out of those filthy clothes," she said, gently stroking his brow. "The water will clean your wound. You're not too cold?"

Gaston moved his head slowly from side to side. "Feels better," he murmured. "Cooler."

She looked up at Rumpelstiltskin, frowning at his expression. "Is something wrong?"

Rumpelstiltskin shook himself, aware that he had been staring, bewildered. For decades, he had been called beast, monster, demon and any combination of other names. Now, the girl, who had summoned him with blood and committed wholesale slaughter by his hand, was saying he was not what he knew himself to be.

"Not at all," he lied. "I just find your casual dismissal of my nature rather naive."

She didn't help matters by laughing quietly. "Maybe," she agreed. "I have a task for you." He tilted his head in expectation. "Can you purify his clothing and the bandages? I don't want to put him back in those clothes, when they're so dirty."

"Such a challenge," he snorted, gathering up the bundle of filthy clothing.

"You needn't," Gaston murmured.

"Hush," his wife murmured. "Let us help you, you stubborn oaf."

Rumpelstiltskin saw Gaston's lips twitch in a tired smile. "Yes, Sir."

 

______________________________________

 

As the days went on, they came across villages, many of them little more than ruins, but by and by, their numbers dwindled. Some people broke off when they reached their own hometown, while others chose to stay with new allies, rather than risk returning to a home that was no longer there.

More often than not, the convoy would stop for a night or sometimes two. It took time to regroup. On nights such as those, they would eat with those who would depart, and rest as best they could.

On one such night, Rumpelstiltskin crept away while his Mistress slept. 

She was no longer so rigid in her control, and no longer ordered him to rest when she did. Instead, she often slept by the side of her husband, who was growing weaker by the day, though neither of them wanted to admit it.

He had a task to do, of his own choosing, yet he couldn’t explain to himself why he felt the impulse to do such a thing.

Magic carried him quicker than the wind to a small town. It was strange, after so many weeks of wreck and ruin, to see a town with the walls intact and the homes unburned. He sought out the apothecary’s, unlatching the door with a gesture, and slipping in.

Alchemy was one of the arts he dabbled in, and while he was no master, he knew enough to find what he sought.

He returned to the encampment in the dead of night, wreathed in shadow. He watched his Mistress for a time. She was sitting upright by Gaston’s litter, but her head drooped forward and her chin rested on her chest. He waited until he was sure she was asleep, then made his way to the other side of the man’s resting place.

Gaston was pale, nearly grey in the thin moonlight, but he still managed to offer a weary smile when Rumpelstiltskin crouched down beside him.

“I know you can only obey her,” he said hoarsely, “but if you have a bone of kindness in you, please lay her down?”

Rumpelstiltskin looked across at the woman. The weight had dropped from her already thin frame, and her skin was as pale as paper. He nodded wordlessly, hopping lightly over the litter and gently tilting his Mistress back to rest on the soft grass. She barely even stirred.

“Thank you,” Gaston breathed, when Rumpelstiltskin returned.

Rumpelstiltskin lifted a hand and touched a finger to his lips, then quickly unfastened Gaston’s coat. The bandages beneath were cleaner, but there was still fresh blood staining them, and he unravelled them deftly. Gaston breathed in sharply as the cool evening air touched his scorching skin.

The scars were inflamed, and the scent of rot was thick around the wounds. It had improved slightly after they bathed him, but fresh streams were few and far between, and it was impossible to keep the wound clear.

Rumpelstiltskin withdrew the bottles he had stolen from the apothecary’s, examining them by the pale moonlight. He slipped his hand under Gaston’s head, tilting his chin, then held up the bottle over the man’s lips. Unquestioning, the man parted cracked and dry lips, accepting what was offered.

It was a pitiable substance, barely enough to numb the simplest of pain, but it was all the apothecary had to hand.

Setting aside the bottle, Rumpelstiltskin opened another. He pulled a kerchief from his pocket, twisting it into a hank for Gaston to bite on and offered it. Gaston shook his head slightly, taking a breath.

“This will hurt,” Rumpelstiltskin said, though he knew the man wouldn’t hear a word he spoke, and he poured the ointment over Gaston’s ravaged chest. 

A tiny, sharp sound escaped the man’s throat, but he clenched his teeth and his fists and barely moved or breathed as the liquid seeped into his wounds. Using the same kerchief, Rumpelstiltskin worked quickly to mop up any of the poison that came to the surface, and it did, thick and reeking. 

It wouldn’t cure. It was too late for that. It had been by the time Rumpelstiltskin learned of the man’s injuries. But it would take away some of the pressure within his chest, and the pain would be less. 

Once the last was cleaned away, Rumpelstiltskin rebound the man’s heaving chest and gently closed the coat over the wounds. He flinched in surprise when Gaston’s hand touched his arm, and he looked to the man’s face.

“Thank you,” Gaston said hoarsely.

Rumpelstiltskin looked at the hand on his arm and shrugged, nodding towards the woman slumbering on the other side of the litter.

“She didn’t ask you to do this,” the man murmured. “This was you.”

Rumpelstiltskin scowled. He had hoped that Gaston would have been unaware of the lack in order, but he shrugged again, shaking Gaston’s hand off and folding his arms.

“I won’t breathe a word,” Gaston murmured with a rasping chuckle. “She would be annoyed with herself for not thinking of it.”

That made Rumpelstiltskin’s lips twitch. She would, too. From what he knew of her, after so many days in her company, he could tell she was stubbornly independent when it came to protecting what she considered hers.

Gaston looked over at her, his eyes already growing unfocussed from the tonic. “I know you are within your rights to kill her, when she releases you,” he said, his words slurring, “but you know why she had to summon you.”

Rumpelstiltskin propped his folded arms atop his knees, looking at the man. It was the simple fact of the matter: he had been bound in servitude, and when free, he could take his vengeance. On a woman who had forced him to kill. Who had only done so to prevent the deaths of everyone around them. Who had done so willingly, knowing the price would be her life.

This woman, this foolish, intelligent, weary, fierce, independent woman was turning all his rules upside down.

Gaston’s eyes drifted back to him. “If you must do it,” the man murmured, “be swift. Nothing you could do could match what has already been done to her, but she doesn’t deserve more pain.” His hand groped out blindly and he found Rumpelstiltskin’s arm again. “But if you can be merciful, let her live. Help her live. Please.”

His fingers fumbled and slipped away as the drugs took hold, gently wrapping Gaston in a haze of painless sleep for at least a short time.

In the faint moonlight, Rumpelstiltskin rested his chin on his folded arms, and stared blindly at the woman he had sworn to kill.

 

_______________________________________

 

 

For once, they had shelter when the rains came.

The cavern that Rumpelstiltskin found for them was large, with several small caves branching off from the central one. Lots were drawn, and smaller caves allocated to those who won. The only person given one unchallenged was Gaston. He was fading fast, rarely waking and barely coherent when he did.

He was given the largest of the small caves, laid well away from the damp draught from the entrance of the cave. It was no surprise that Rumpelstiltskin’s mistress went with him, sitting by his side by the light of a candlestub.

Rumpelstiltskin crouched silently in the opening that led to the main cavern, watching the woman from the corner of his eye. 

Even though Gaston was insensible, she still talked to him quietly, calmly, as if he could hear every word. She bathed his skin, cooling the fever as best she could, and stroked his hair and brow, as if she could smooth the pain away.

Not once had Rumpelstiltskin seen her composure break. A flicker in an expression was hardly what one expected when one knew that her husband was being poisoned from the inside out, dying a slow and painful death. 

She knew. Everyone did. Even Gaston - when conscious - was aware of it. Everyone spoke of it in whispers. Rumpelstiltskin knew it was because they feared distressing her, but anyone who looked at her could see that she knew.

It was only when she fell silent that Rumpelstiltskin unfolded from the entrance and walked over to sit cross-legged by the litter, looking across at her. 

“You should rest.”

“I know.”

He put his head to one side. “You know he can’t hear you,” he said. “Why do you keep talking to him?”

She drew a blanket up over Gaston’s chest, covering him to his chin, and smoothed it gently. “Because he’s still here,” she said quietly. “If I keep talking, then I know he could still be listening. If I stop…” For a moment, her voice wavered. “If I stop, then I’ll have given up, and if I give up, then he’ll be gone.”

Rumpelstiltskin could see how bright her eyes were, wet and shining, and he looked away, unable or unwilling to see her weep. Or both. She was too strong for that, and he didn’t want to see it.

“You must care a great deal,” he said slowly.

She was silent for a long time, and finally whispered, “He was more than just my husband. We were friends, more than anything else. Comrades. He was my sword and I was his guide. He helped me stand when my world fell down around me.” She took a shivering breath. “He talked to me even though I couldn’t hear.”

She rose abruptly, as if she had said too much and walked to the far side of the cave, facing the wall, her arms wrapping around her thin body.

Rumpelstiltskin looked down at the man on the pallet. His lips were paler than his skin, and his eyelids were puckering and twitching. There was a fever building, and it looked like it might be the last. He laid his hand on the man’s brow. There was little he could do against mortal illness, but he could cool the blood a little, lower the fever, at least for a time. 

“Tell me of him,” he murmured.

The woman turned, looking at him with bloodshot, shadow-ringed eyes. “Why?”

He lifted his shoulders. “It takes much to be loved,” he said. “Your words show that he is. Is he worth your grief?”

She remained where she was, rocking on her feet, her arms folded across her waist.

“He is,” she finally said. “He’s all I have left.”

Rumpelstiltskin frowned, studying her. “Your people?”

“My people are those who survived,” she said, walking back across the cave towards them and crouching down. “The people of my blood, the people who were mine before this war…” She shook her head. “He is all that I have left.”

He stared at her. “You and he?”

She nodded, looking up at his face. “We were at the battlefield,” she murmured, looking down at the unconscious man. “Our army. We were fighting. We had no idea that they had a second army coming in along the coast. We returned and…” Her shoulders rose. “Our battalion survived, but they have been picked off one by one in the last two years. Now, there is only him.”

“And you.”

She gazed at him. “Until I release you,” she said quietly. Her lips twitched. “I have that to look forward to.”

If she had taken his dagger and thrust it into his chest, she could not have taken his breath more suddenly.

His expression gave him away, and she offered him the briefest glimpse of a small smile. “I still remember your promise,” she murmured. “I imprisoned you, trapped you in servitude, made you dirty your hands for me. I know there will be vengeance for the humiliation.”

“So you still intend to release me?”

She nodded, lifting one hand to brush her fingers along her cheek. “When we are home,” she said quietly. “We are too weak to get there unaided. Once there, you will be free. I give you my word.”

He looked blankly at her.

He remembered his predecessor, Zoso, who had been held in thrall for so long that he sought his own death to have some manner of freedom. That same freedom led to Rumpelstiltskin’s own enslavement to the power that he now held. He never imagined that if he was summoned, he would find a master willing to simply relinquish the creature they controlled.

All the gory and delightful imaginings he had for the woman were just that. The possibility he might be able to carry them out was hopeful at best, and as time had passed, they had become less and less violent, the more he knew her. All the same, he was sure he would have remained enslaved to her until her death, or until her line was ended, and his blade was forgotten.

She tilted her head, her expression growing serious. “You think I lie?”

“I think I don’t understand you,” he replied bluntly. “You control a great power, and you would give it all up?”

She nodded. “What use is power if it comes too late to save that which needed to be saved?” she asked.

His eyes flicked down to Gaston, remembering, then back up to her. “Cecile?” he said quietly. “Eveline?”

It was as if he had struck her. She flinched. Her lips thinned to a line and she closed her eyes, nodding.

“Children?” he whispered, understanding so much more.

“They were in the castle,” she said, her voice trembling. “Safe, we believed. All of the villagers were hiding there too. With my father. He was… too old to fight. He was protecting them. Ceci was four, and Eve less than a year.” Her hands laced together, her knuckles jutting in white ridges. “They burned the castle. What didn’t burn, they pelted with boulders until it collapsed.”

All at once, his hand was closed over hers. 

He did not realise that he had moved, and she looked as surprised as he felt, staring at him. His heart was drumming wildly, and he realised that he understood her, and what madness had driven her to him.

“No parent,” he said quietly, “should ever lose a child.”

Then he rose and walked abruptly from the cave.

 

__________________________________________

 

Gaston died on the last leg of the journey.

They were on the move, and he was so still and silent already, that for a time, no one noticed the transition from dying man to empty shell. The fever had been burning for days, ravaging his body, and his last breath was no louder than the one before. 

Rumpelstiltskin was the one to realise.

He raised his hand, motioning for the convoy to halt.

His Mistress was stumbling alongside the litter, half-dead on her feet. He couldn’t recall the last time he saw her sleep. She was as pale as the corpse. For a moment, she stared at him in incomprehension, as if she couldn’t understand why they had stopped, then she looked down.

She never failed to surprise him.

There were no tears.

She simply knelt down beside the litter and draped her arm over the still chest, her head on the man’s shoulder. She stayed there, her eyes closed, and around them, heads were bowed and caps removed.

For a long while, the only sound was the wind through the long grasses and the distant rush of the river, then she sat back and drew the covers up over Gaston’s still face, gently tucking them around him in a makeshift shroud. Rumpelstiltskin wondered if he was the only one who noticed how much her hands shook.

When she rose, it was if the weight of the world had been lifted from her.

“We only have a little further to go,” she said, her voice as calm and steady as ever. He could see the way her hands clenched at her sides, drawing on the last of the strength she had left. “Who will help me bear him?”

Even if no one else had stepped forward, Rumpelstiltskin was by her side almost as soon as the words left her lips. Blue eyes looked at him blankly, then she nodded in acknowledgement, reaching out to touch his arm.

Others came forward, so many that the litter barely weighed anything.

His Mistress walked at the head, still stumbling, her hands wrapping around one of the supports, and he opposite her. There was a calm about her, unnatural and still, and he knew that her mind was rebelling against the truth of her husband’s death. The grief would come. He didn’t know where or when, but it was gathering like a storm cloud, and when it broke, it would be devastating.

“Where are we going?” he asked quietly.

She stared ahead across the plain that led to the river. “Home,” she said.

They were close to the sea now. The scent of salt on the air was mingling with the fresh, clean smell of the rushing river. Once, this must have been a place of beauty, but now, he could see the ruins of houses in the distance, and on the highest point of the coastline, where it would have been most defensible, the shell of what had once been a great castle.

They stopped when they reached the banks of the river. There had once been a bridge, but like the castle, it had been burned away. The only evidence that there had ever been a bridge were two rocky posts with metal rings embedded in them.

Rumpelstiltskin could make out names carved crudely into the stone.

His Mistress walked stiffly towards them as soon as the litter was laid down, pulling her dagger from her belt. Her fingers briefly skimmed over three names at the top of the rock, then she knelt, seeking a clear spot, and with the tip of the blade, started to chip at the stone.

Rumpelstiltskin went on one knee beside her. “I could,” he offered quietly.

She shook her head. “I must,” she said, her eyes fixed on the blade, scraping and chipping at the stone to carve her husband’s name. She looked at him, blank-eyed. “I need you to build the pyre for him.”

He looked at her in silence for a moment, then nodded. His hand brushed her shoulder as he rose, and went to do what he was ordered.

There was plenty of driftwood on the shore, and together with a dozen from the hundred that remained with them, he gathered the wood for the pyre. No one spoke, though he knew they were all wondering about what would happen now that his Mistress had reached her home.

It was approaching sundown when the pyre was built. His Mistress approached, climbing onto the pyre to press her lips to her husband’s brow. Rumpelstiltskin was the only one close enough to hear her whisper: “Take care of the girls.”

He offered a hand to help her down, and she held onto it tightly. He didn’t pull his free. Instead, he shifted his hand and let their fingers interlace, then held out the flickering torch to her with his other hand.

He watched her profile, cast in gold by the setting sun, and he saw her lick her dry lips. Her eyes remained fixed on the pyre as she lowered the torch and the flames took hold, and then, her voice rose in trembling song.

It was unfamiliar to him, but it was recognisably a mourning song.

Those around them murmured along, like an echo, but it was her voice that rang and carried over the crackle of the flames. The torch trembled in her hand and dropped to the grass, and she fell silent as the pyre burned.

Others drifted away, venturing to the ruined village to seek shelter for the night, but dozens stayed, standing behind the lady who had saved them and led them. It was a sign of their devotion to her, he realised, but she seemed unaware of it.

Her hand was still closed around his in a death grip, as if she would fall if she didn’t have him to hold on to, and she gazed into the heart of the flames, as her husband’s broken body was consumed. 

Where she found the strength to remain standing through the night, he didn’t know, but she did. She swayed, and her face was pale by the light of the flames, but she didn’t move from the spot. 

He didn’t leave her side. He knew that she needed someone to be there, and he knew - worse still - that he was the only person she had left.

The pyre was burning lower by the time dawn crept over the land. 

They were the only ones remaining upright, which was no great surprise. There was loyalty, and there was exhaustion. Several people were sleeping on the grass nearby, asleep where they had fallen.

As the sun trailed over them, his Mistress put out her hand, capturing the last wisp of smoke and releasing it to the sky.

Then, she seemed to fold downwards, her legs simply giving way beneath her, and she crumpled to the ground.

 

_______________________________________________

 

The spark that had driven his Mistress was gone.

A day and a night had passed since her husband’s pyre had burned, but she had not moved nor spoken. It was if the severing of her last tie to her old life had severed all link she had with her continued existence.

Rumpelstiltskin was disconcerted.

For so long, her resolve had been diamond-hard. She was by far the strongest person he had ever met, and certainly the bravest. To see her sitting against a wall, blank, a silent and hollow shell, felt wrong.

Others in the group tried to interfere, to rouse her, but he dismissed them with an icy glare. It did not seem right, to allow them to see her broken and vulnerable, not when she was their figurehead.

He had claimed one of the ruined stone houses for her. It took but a little magic to make it safe, and repair the damage that was done. It was simple, plain, and reminded him of a house he had once shared with his son. The old, mortal ways came back to him easily enough: lighting the fire, cooking over it, spreading dried grass on the floor in place of straw. 

She sat where he placed her, close to the fire and the warmth, but didn’t move. He had to pour soup down her throat, and though she swallowed, it was automatic, There was nothing happening behind her eyes anymore.

At first, he thought it was simply shock, that she would stir within hours, but he watched her through the day and the night, and there was no sign that she would come back to herself. 

Before, when he was still ignorant, he knew he would have been satisfied to let her fade away to nothing, but now, it was unthinkable. They had come too far together, he with her and her husband and all the people who had chosen to remain with them.

He couldn’t help but remember Gaston’s words: let her live. Help her live.

Gaston knew his wife. Gaston knew what she had lost, what they had lost, and what it had done to her. He had expected this.

Rumpelstiltskin paced the floor, watching her. He had tried dousing her with ice water from the river. He had struck her face, immediately regretting it. He had fed her spiced food that should have had her crying for water. Nothing had helped.

He crouched down in front of her, propping his arms on his knees. 

She needed something to shock her. Something that would anger her. Something that would rekindle that spark of passion that was so very much her. Taunting her hadn’t worked. Her ears seemed to be as dulled as her eyes. 

He rocked on his toes.

She had lost her children. That was information he would never use against her. The only other thing he really knew of her was that her husband was important to her. A husband and lover.

It felt wrong, but it was the only thing he could think of that might rouse her to fury.

He leaned forward and kissed her.

To his shock, her lips parted in a sharp gasp, and he pulled back.

Unfocussed blue eyes were fixed on his face, and he saw the moment that she recognised him. He straightened up from the floor at once, half-expecting her to pull the blade from her belt and plunge it into his chest.

Stiffly, like a child learning to walk, she struggled to her feet, staring at him.

His fingers twitched by his side. There was a strange gleam in her eyes, and he didn’t have a chance to understand it before she was kissing him as if her very life depended on it. Her mouth was ravishing fire, unexpected and demanding, and his own mouth opened to hers in shock.

Her hands slid up his chest, pulling him down to her with a desperate urgency, and her fingers raked through his hair, over his shoulders. He blinked helplessly, stunned, lost.

“Please,” she whispered against his lips.

His hands were trembling as he touched her, holding her. It had been so long, never since the transition, and she was hot, and shaking and her lips explored his throat, like fire, burning ever spot they touched.

He heard the whisper of metal, and half expected pain, but instead, the stays of his waistcoat snapped like silk threads beneath his dagger, and she pulled his waistcoat and shirt apart, her mouth moving down his chest, making his breath catch and his head spin.

For a moment, her ear pressed to his chest, and for a split second, in that pause, that moment without desire, he touched her cheek, brushed his thumb along her closed eyelid, felt the trembling lashes against his skin.

Then she moved, and her lips caught his thumb, bit, then sucked and he stifled a groan.

She turned her face up to his, her eyes so wide and dark he could have sworn he could fall into them. Her lips were parted and it took no effort at all to lean down and kiss her again. He tried to be gentle, but she was having none, and her mouth travelled down his chest, nibbling, licking, biting. Her teeth scraped over his nipple, even as one of her hands tugged at his breeches. 

He tried to touch, tried to do something, but his head was spinning and he couldn’t think or even move. He felt her hand inside his breeches, felt her fingers wrap around him, as if they had done it a hundred times before, and a short, stifled cry caught in his throat.

All thought of gentleness was cast aside, and he pushed her back against the wall, reaching for the belt of her ragged breeches, pushing them down. She kicked them aside without thought, and his hand only fumbled for a moment at the heat of her, as he pressed his hand between her thighs.

She gave a soft whimper, and he played his fingers along her skin. It had been so long, he could barely remember, but he remembered enough to touch, to search, to slide his fingers deep and she whimpered again.

Her fingers tugged, making him shudder.

“Please,” she moaned, squirming against his hand. 

Even if he hadn’t been under thrall to her, he couldn’t have resisted. No man in their right mind could have.

He caught her thighs, hitching her up, and slamming her hard against the wall. She wrapped her arms around him and met his eyes. They were still, silent, staring for a moment that felt like it lasted forever, then she nodded.

He pushed himself into her and she arched her neck with a keening cry, her fingers hooking into his shoulders as he crushed her up against the wall. Her legs wrapped around him, and she arched and writhed against him.

He caught one of her wrists, pinning it above her head, and claimed her mouth again. No, not claiming. Battling. There was nothing tender or gentle here. It was fighting. It was surviving. It was violent and furious and burning them both alive.

Her nails sank into his back, dragging up. There would be blood. Her back was scraping against the stone wall. There would be blood. She caught his lip between her teeth and he growled, and there was blood and she was sobbing.

He tried to slow, but she shook her head, moved her hips, desperate, still desperate.

He released her hand, cradling her hips and thrust hard and deep. Every thrust drew a ragged sob from her, and he could taste tears and sweat and blood, and the strongest woman he had ever met shattered like crystal in his hand. 

 

_________________________________________________

 

 

The candle had burned out.

Rumpelstiltskin could barely make out the shape of his Mistress by the moonlight.

They hadn’t moved, not since their legs gave out, and they were still sprawled on the grass-covered floor. His breeches were still around his ankles, and he could find no energy to pull them back up to gather some false sense of modesty.

She was sitting beside him, not quite touching, her legs splayed in front of her. 

It had taken some time for them both to breathe again, evenly.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered hoarsely. She had wept for what felt like hours, even as he held her up against the wall. He held her until his legs trembled, until he was sure he would fall, but he didn’t let her go, not until her tears ran dry.

“It’s no matter,” he murmured, looking blankly into the darkness. He wasn’t quite sure what had happened, but he knew he couldn’t and wouldn’t ever regret it.

Her hand touched his arm, then drew back as if she were afraid of doing some damage to him, which he found amusingly ironic, after the clawing she had given his back. “I shouldn’t have used you like that.”

He looked at her, picking out the shape of her face in the darkness. “Used me?”

She nodded. “It wasn’t an order I should have given,” she said quietly. 

Rumpelstiltskin laughed quietly, wonderingly. “Dearie,” he said as gently as he could, “in case you hadn’t noticed, I wasn’t an unwilling participant.” He moved his hand until he found hers and patted it. “Aside from the scarring to my back, you have nothing to apologise for.”

She was silent for a moment, then she moved a little closer and laid her head on his shoulder. Her hair was warm and soft against his skin.

“Thank you, then,” she whispered.

He moved his arm and carefully put it around her shoulder. It was strange, to want to be of comfort to someone, but she curled into him, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. 

Her small hand pressed to his chest, resting over his heart. “I made a promise to you,” she said quietly. “I told you that when I reached home, I would set you free.”

“And I made a promise also,” he murmured, remembering too well. He was not one who broke his word, but then, he was not the kind of person who would mercilessly ravish a new widow against the wall of a peasant’s cottage.

They both fell silent, and her hand was trembling on his chest.

“Will you kill me?” she finally breathed. “If I release you?”

He brought his hand up to cover hers. “The truth, dearie?” She nodded. “I don’t know.” He tilted his head, resting his cheek against her hair. “Would you want me to?”

She laughed, a small, broken sound. “I don’t know.”

He stroked his fingers down her arm gently. “Your husband wanted you to live,” he said quietly. “He knew his passing would be a trial for you, but he wished you happiness now that you do not need to fear war.” He pressed his lips to her hair. “He knew you were brave enough to live.”

She drew back and looked at him as much as she could by the faint moonlight.

When she drew away and got to her feet, he wanted to protest, but he held his tongue. She picked her way around the cottage, searching for the candle. She relit it, then returned to him, carrying her belt, and his blade.

She placed the candle between them, her pale skin cast in buttery flickering gold.

“I won’t break my promise,” she said quietly. She unsheathed his blade, and laid it against her palm, bringing forth fresh blood.

His heart felt like it was twisting within his ribs. “Dearie, you don’t need to…”

She smiled quietly, and nodded. “Yes, I do,” she replied. “You’re not a slave, Rumpelstiltskin. I don’t own you or deserve you.” She drew the blade through the blood on her palm. “I release you from my service. You are free.”

There should have been lights or an explosion of power or something, but the candle just flickered and danced, and he just stared at her, his blade in her hand, her blood on the metal, her skin bruised and beautiful and marked by him.

She extended the grip of the dagger towards him and smiled.

He was shocked to see his hand was shaking when he took it. If it had been months earlier, if it had even been before this night, he might still have considered taking the blade to her pale throat, if he could accept the thought of a world without this diamond of a woman in it. If, if, if. 

She raised her head, bared her throat, closed her eyes. “Do as you will,” she whispered.

He stared helplessly at her. Any anger he had felt towards her for his servitude had long been quashed. Where at first he had seen a tyrant, he had discovered a grieving mother and orphan. She was as desperate as he had been so many years ago, and now, he could offer her freedom from her grief.

And yet, he knew that if he stained his hands with her blood, it would be the one deed he regretted more than anything in his long and bloody lifetime. 

Silently, he leaned down and took one of her thin, trembling hands in his. He turned it palm up and hesitated only a moment before placing the grip of his dagger back into her grasp.

Her eyes flew open and she stared at him. “What are you doing?”

His lips trembled. “I’m breaking a promise,” he said, closing her fingers around the dagger. “I want you to keep it. Keep it safe. You know the value of it, and that it should be used with care. Many wouldn’t.” 

She stared at his hand closed around hers, then looked up at him. “You trust me?”

His lips turned up in a small, tired smile. “Strange as it may seem, dear,” he said quietly, “I do.”

She lifted her other hand to touch his cheek. “Belle,” she said softly. “My name is Belle.”

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel - [Breath to a Flame](http://archiveofourown.org/works/376760)


End file.
